


Snapshots of Science

by HathorAroha



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Photography, Series of Vignettes, text with photography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21890233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HathorAroha/pseuds/HathorAroha
Summary: For as long as she can remember, Chloe has always asked questions about the world around her, why the sun shines, stars twinkle, animals hibernate, and why oceans are so deep. This is a montage of time, accompanied by photography, showing when her passion for science was at its highest, and when it was its lowest, only to climb back up again when Max came back into her life.(Warning: image heavy!)
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price, Rachel Amber/Chloe Price
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Snapshots of Science

__

_Why do bees buzz?_

_Why does the sun shine?_

_Why do stars twinkle?_

_Why is thunder loud?_

_Why is the grass green, and the sky blue, and tree trunks brown?_

By the time Chloe was five, she had already asked her father all these questions, her curious mind looking at the world around her in complete awe and wonder. After her mother had become fed up more than once by Chloe’s incessant, insistent questions about why the world worked as it did, she eventually only ever asked her dad about why everything was what it was. He never complained or was “too exhausted” to answer her questions, not like her mother, though Chloe was sad she didn’t seem to care as much about finding out everything she could. 

_Why is the sea blue?_

_Why do waves crash on the beach?_

_Why do crabs scuttle sideways?_

Arcadia Bay’s library was, as her dad would say, “old school”, still stuck in the past with its card catalogues and the slow, ancient computers that hadn’t been updated since before she was born. Chloe didn’t like that the library had a limit of fifteen books on her children’s card. Who could be happy with only fifteen books at a time, when there was so much to learn about this big, whirling planet sling-shotting around one of millions upon millions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy? How could anyone think of going outside and playing all day when there was so much to learn about her planet and the universe beyond? 

“You’re going to read all the science books we have before Christmas!” the librarians at the desk would tease whenever they spotted her with her tower of books in her arms or sitting on a beanbag with her latest read. 

“I will, because I want to know everything!” 

“I’m sure you will, Miss Price. Enjoy your books.” 

Why _wouldn’t_ she? 

_How does our body know when it’s hungry or thirsty?_

_Why do teeth fall out and new ones grow?_

_Why do we blink? Why do our eyes never fall out when we look down?_

_Why do people have different eye and hair colour?_

Chloe’s teachers were worried about how much time she spent by herself in the school library, curled up on a beanbag, surrounded by mountains of books on science and fun experiments for kids to try (with adult supervision, of course). But her dad always came to her defense time and time again. What was wrong with his daughter having such a curious mind? She was smart, she was going to go a long way with that brain of hers. They should be proud, not worried, about having a student so fascinated by everything around them. She could be getting up to worse things than asking and reading about how this big planet and the even bigger universe outside it worked. 

_Why do animals hibernate?_

_Do polar bears ever get cold?_

_Why are penguins black and white?_

_Why do birds make different calls? Why do owls hoot and crows caw, and not the other way around?_

She was lucky her dad always listened to her when she found the answers to all these questions, and she would try to tell her mom as well, and sometimes she thought they were interesting too. After all, even adults as old as her mom and dad didn’t know everything. She’d asked her dad once if anyone could ever know everything. After a good-natured laugh, he’d broke the news that it wasn’t possible, that humans had discovered so many things not even the smartest people could know all. Perhaps two hundred or even three hundred years ago, it was easier to know about why everything in nature was as it was, but now, right in the earliest years of the 21st century? Not anymore. 

Well, Chloe decided, it wasn’t like it would hurt to try and learn everything anyway. She was always up for a challenge, and Chloe Elizabeth Price was the last person to ever back down from one. If someone challenged her to learn everything about nature and the universe, she was going to make it her life’s mission to try. 

For a while, it was just her dad whom she told all the answers she’d found to all her questions. 

That is, until she met Maxine Caulfield, a very shy, very quiet girl with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a band of freckles across her cheeks and nose. Maybe it was just seeing her all alone on a bench picking at her lunchbox contents, her juice-box left unopened next to her, but something had drawn Chloe to her. 

_Maybe she might like learning science too! A new friend!_

Hugging her books against her chest, Chloe had walked all the way to the bench where the new girl was sitting with lunchbox on her knees and the juice-box nearly knocked over by her elbow. She didn’t look up, not even when Chloe plopped down next to her with a cheery “Hey there!” 

_Maybe she’s deaf? Some people can’t hear because they’re born that way._

Chloe was proud in that moment she’d learned some sign language. Tapping the girl on the shoulder finally got her attention, and she looked up at Chloe with big, shy blue eyes, biting her lip in clear anxiety. Chloe signed, “ _Hi, I’m C-H-L-O-E.”_

A flicker of confusion in the girl’s eyes, followed by a few seconds of awkward silence before the girl’s face lit up in a little laugh.

“I’m not deaf. I’m just really shy. Sorry.” 

Chloe gave her a friendly nudge with her elbow. “Nah, it’s cool. I’m Chloe Price.” 

“Oh! Hi Chloe Price!” 

“And what’s your name?” 

“Maxine Caulfield. But I want to be called Max.”

“Hey, you want to know something really cool?” 

Max looked back down at her open lunchbox, finally pulling out a carrot stick. 

“What’s really cool?” 

“Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards!” 

“That’s…cool. I’ve seen hummingbirds.” 

Chloe watched as Max took a bite of her carrot stick, looking away into the distance. Had she bored her already? Just great. She’d spent way too much time with her nose stuck in a book, and not making friends and socialising with her classmates, and of course she ruined everything on the first try. 

But Max’s next words dissuaded all of those fretful worries. 

“My mom took a photo of a hummingbird in our garden once. It was a very small hummingbird, but very pretty. I like the way their wings sound.” 

“That’s why they hum, Max. It’s the wings that make that pretty sound, did you know that?” 

Max turned her head to look at Chloe, a shy smile now lighting up her eyes. 

“I didn’t know that before. Thanks, Chloe, now I learned something new.” 

_Oh! She liked it!_

“I love learning about science, so I like that you liked that science fact. I’ve learned a lot of science things. Ask me anything?” 

Apparently Max was a deep thinker too, as it took her the rest of the carrot stick to finally come up with a question. 

“Okay, Chloe. How do cameras take pictures?” 

“Just press the button that takes a picture.” 

“No silly, I mean what makes cameras know how to take a picture? How do they work?” 

“Oh man…you got me with that question. But don’t worry! We can go to the library after lunch, right?” 

Max grinned, looking both surprised and happy. “You want to know as well?” 

“Hey, I want to know everything when I grow up. Dad says it’s impossible, but I, Chloe Price, will never back down from a challenge.” 

Max picked up her juice box, wrinkling her nose. “Ew, it’s apple juice again. Do you want it, Chloe?” 

“You don’t like apple juice? Why?” 

“I just don’t. You can have it.” 

“Yeah, I’ll chug it for you, if you don’t want it.” Chloe grabbed the juice box, busying herself with opening it and sticking the straw in for a first sip. “You don’t eat much do you?” 

Max shrugged, slumping a little on the bench, picking again at her food. “I don’t feel like eating today. I’m new here. I don’t really have any friends.” 

“I don’t too.”

Max looked up at her again, her face a picture of surprise. “Really?” 

“You don’t believe me?” 

“You look like someone who might have lots of friends.” 

“Nah, I don’t. Teachers think it’s weird I don’t have friends though.” 

“Really? Mine too. They got really worried and talked to my mom and dad.” 

“Same. Hey, we already have a lot of things in common! See? We can be friends! If having no friends makes us weird, then we can be weird together, right?” 

A shy, quiet giggle. “Sure, Chloe. We can be friends if you like.” 

“Cool! Let’s shake on it!” Chloe held out her hand, waiting for Max to take it. “Best friends already, right?” 

Max grinned, bringing forward a shy hand to shake Chloe’s. “Okay, Chloe, we’re friends now.” 

They sat together in the library the rest of that lunch, reading all about how cameras work and how they can take pictures of the world full of wonders and curiosities. 

_Why are oceans so deep?_

_What does the seafloor look like?_

_How do volcanoes form underwater?_

_Why do sharks have to keep swimming all the time?_

From the moment Max and Chloe had discovered real life pirates who were girls, they were obsessed with going on pirating adventures around Arcadia Bay, conquering its shores from the lighthouse to the beach to the Two Whales Diner. Naturally, Chloe was the leader, declaring herself to be Captain Bluebeard, with her faithful companion, Long Max Silver always at her side through storms and sunshine. But then, Chloe being Chloe, so did her desire to learn all the things travel wherever they went on the high seas. Captain Bluebeard dove into all kinds of marine science books for children, reading about all sorts of things from animals living under the sea to the geology of the seafloor. 

“There’s underwater volcanoes, Max, isn’t that awesome?!” Chloe would crow for the umpteenth time, “And did you know there’s moons in our solar system that might have oceans hidden under ice? That’s so cool!” 

“What about our moon?” 

“Nope. Not our moon, sadly. Would be cool if it did though. Hey, guess what my favourite animal is now? An otter!” 

“Arabian horse for me, still.” 

“Once a landlubber, always a landlubber, Long Max Silver. Otters are so adorable. They hold paws while they sleep so they don’t drift apart from each other.” 

“That _is_ adorable.” 

Of all the countless things Chloe loved about her new best friend, it was that she never grew sick of her babbling about all the things she learned about science, and patiently sailed along with her at every topical twist and turn. One day Chloe would be way into learning all about cephalopods (“Omigod, Chloe, nautiluses swim like _dorks_ ”), and the next, she would be learning all about the different depths of the sea (“One wrong move, scallywag, and you’ll be sinkin’ to the abyss, yaaarr!”).

Max was the bestest friend ever, sailing the seven seas with her forever, and they would never leave each other’s sides. Ever .

And _that_ was a scientific fact. 

_What is a scientist? What do scientists_ do _?_

_What do they have to learn at college or university to be one?_

_What kind of careers can scientists have?_

_What type of scientist do_ I _want to be?_

_Oh man…so many choices, how can I choose a science!_

If there was one thing Chloe could say about Max’s future career, it was that at least _she_ knew exactly what she wanted to be, even at eleven years of age. From the first day they’d met and learned all about cameras in the library, to now in 2006, Max had always been fascinated by cameras and never stopped dreaming of becoming a photographer. William had to keep a constant eye on his camera lest it was “borrowed” by Max and left somewhere around the house, forgotten by Max as she flew off on another adventure with Chloe. 

Chloe sometimes stayed awake long into the night pondering just what kind of scientist she wanted to be, at least until she changed her mind yet again. She’d wanted to be a billion different varieties of scientists, depending on whatever interest she’d had at that time. Marine biologist, oceanographer, geologist, astronomer, astronaut, zoologist, ecologist, and volcanologist were only a tiny sample of all the things she’d ever dreamed of becoming. If only humans lived forever, she could be everything and anything she had ever wanted to be. 

_What if I became an engineer? Maybe build rockets that could one day transport humans to Mars? That would be kickass._

That or she could always be a geochemist, studying isotopes in ice cores on location in Antarctica (as long as she got to pet some penguins too). She’d always wanted to go to Antarctica for as long as she could remember, and of course Max would come along too, camera and all. 

_I can do this. I will do this. I_ will _science, and nothing can knock my love for it. I will never stop loving learning about science. Ever._

That is, until one fateful day in 2008 changed everything. 

_I hate my life. Nothing matters anymore. Fuck everything. I hate everything. Max is gone and she won’t even talk to me._

When she discovered her mother had moved on to dating another man mere _months_ after her dad’s death, Chloe had thrown her solar system model across her bedroom, smashing it against the wall in her rage. Pluto rolled away into a hidden crack in a dark corner; Saturn’s rings shattered into dust; Jupiter went rolling away under the bed; and Earth bounced away under a dresser, impossible to retrieve. Chloe couldn’t even summon up an iota of regret, not caring anymore what happened. 

_Who cares? It doesn’t matter anymore._

Books were cast aside, dumped into the trash can outside when her mother and new boyfriend weren’t looking. It wasn’t like she was ever going to look at them again, now that no one was around to listen to her bubble over with enthusiasm about all the new things she learned in all things science from astronomy to zoology. Her dad was dead, and Max had not only moved, but also ghosted her, and her mom was only interested in this _David_ person, whoever the hell he was. Not like Chloe cared. 

_Science won’t bring back my dad. Fuck you, science._

Even her treasured rock collection, fossils and all, didn’t survive the purge, dumped along with old books into a bin outside. Who cared about rewinding into deep time or how different rocks formed when her dad was dead and Max was as silent as the stars wheeling above Arcadia Bay every night. 

_Why bother anymore. I have no one._

Her grades, once top notch and buoyed by her unending passion for knowledge, nose-dived into fail after fail, her As turning into Cs and Ds and Fs. Her teachers kept telling her to try harder and to see tutors for help, but the passion had died with her father, and with Max’s moving away to Seattle. She should have been worried by her sudden lack of interest in anything science, but Chloe didn’t care. 

_What’s the point of science when it won’t bring back dad? What’s even the point of hoping for the future? There’s nothing left for me._

They always said science is hard to get into anyway past high school, and you needed a PhD to have any hope of a proper science position. And with her grades slipping, there was no way she’d ever be one anyway. As if she cared.

And anyway, people always changed and lost interest in things they loved as a kid all the time. This wasn’t any different. Kids always loved science, that was natural, they were always asking questions about the world. Adults never did, and it seemed she’d already reached that phase in her life when she no longer cared to know why the world was what it was. 

_Fuck you, science. You’ll never bring dad back._

__

_The stars are dead._

_Chemistry is way too hard! What’s with their hard-on for balancing chemical equations anyway?_

_We’re fucking up the planet with climate change, so what’s the point. Humans suck._

_Fuck it. I don’t care. I’m expelled anyway._

Well, it had to happen sooner or later, especially after meeting Rachel Amber, who quickly became her angel, her sweetheart, her constant companion who would never leave her side unlike _someone_ Chloe could name. Like her, Rachel didn’t care much for science either, if at all, but she too knew what she wanted to _be_ , and Chloe hated feeling jealous of her for that. 

_Like Max with her love of photography, Rachel knows exactly what she wants to be: a famous model. Maybe I just wanted to be a pot-smoking high-school dropout all along. Don’t know many pot-smoking high-school dropouts who became scientists._

Chloe let Rachel draw her into a world of rebellion, hanging out in the junkyard in their secret little hideout, exploring their relationship in more ways than one, sharing a bong and giggling over nothing as they bitched about their lives dipped in shit, interrupted by long, passionate kisses that evolved into waking up the next morning with their clothes definitely not on them, and their limbs tangled around each other’s bodies, lips soft against bare skin, red marks hinting at their impassioned love-making from the previous nights. 

_Okay, I’m definitely into girls, not boys. Boys are gross anyway._

They spent so much time together in their favourite spot in the junkyard they joked to each other they may as well just move right on in. It really felt like a real home for Chloe, away from her mom and step-dildo, just her and Rachel alone, away from the rest of the shit-hole of the world. They dreamed together of running away to LA, of spending the rest of their lives together, professing their undying devotion to each other, a love that would never die as they exchanged bracelets with the initials of their first names with each other–an R for Rachel and C for Chloe. They were in love, it was going to last a whole life long. Those bracelets exchanged under the light of a full moon, stoned as fuck, beer bottles circling them like an audience at a marriage, they may as well have been solid gold wedding bands. They were going to last forever. 

Then one day, Rachel started missing more and more nights together with Chloe. Her texts were apologetic, vague, explaining that she had other friends she wanted to hang out with too. Texts flew back and forth between them, Chloe kicking back with her feet on the makeshift table in the hideout, a third beer bottle at her side. 

_Oh so you’re abandoning me?_

_No Chloe, it’s not like that._

_I’m not your best friend anymore? Bitch._

_Of course you’re my friend._

_You’ve been missing more and more of our nights together. Kinda crappy of you._

_Chloe, if I could explain, I would._

_Then explain. Why?_

Silence. Chloe’s hand gripped tighter on the phone, waiting and waiting for her to text or even call, but nothing. 

“Fuck you, Rachel!” she shouted, flinging the cellphone hard against the other wall, watching it clatter to the floor in several pieces. “Fine, just abandon me like everyone else has! Some fucking friend you are! Did our time together mean nothing?!” 

For good measure, she tossed the now empty beer bottles at the wall too, watching as they shattered to the floor with a satisfying clatter of glass. 

_I hate this._

Her anger now burnt out, Chloe pulled out a scrap piece of paper and a pen, scrawling again and again, four words: _I want to die_ , before shoving the paper face down in a shelf. She could have ripped it up, left it in the bin, but no, instead on a shelf where anyone could find it. Maybe part of her hoped someone would, someone who would not abandon her for once. 

Maybe she hoped Max might come back, see that, and realise how much shit Chloe’s been through. If she ever came back or talked to her again. 

In the small hours of early dawn, when she walked out for air, Chloe almost tripped over a heavy box left outside the door, possibly dumped by someone earlier last evening. Having nothing better to do, she crouched and opened the box to find old abandoned science magazines with titles like _Techno_ and _Atom_. 

_Oh yeah…I remember loving science. Once._

She stood up, meaning to turn around and go back inside for more sleep, but hesitated just long enough that she grabbed a magazine out of the box, flipping it to a random page. A familiar twinge, nostalgic and sad in its return, went through her as she read an article on the latest science about Saturn’s moon, Titan. 

_The petrol moon._

Well, she had nothing better to do, her cellphone was broken, and it wasn’t like anyone was going to miss her anyway. May as well wake, bake, and read. 

_What’s the harm in a little bit of reading? Not like Rachel cares. No one misses me._

And one day, Rachel disappeared, without a word, from Arcadia Bay. 

And one day, Max returned, saving Chloe’s life in the girls’ bathroom at Blackwell Academy, turning a shitty Monday into one of the best in years. 

_How can science explain your kickass powers, Max?_

_Does this mean parallel universes exist now? Mirror universes?_

_What happens when you rewind time? Do you hop into the fourth or fifth or ninth dimension? How do you not get flung into space? The Earth isn’t the only thing moving through space–our whole solar system goes where the sun goes._

_Is there some genetic link to this? Are rewind powers a dominant or recessive trait? Can it be passed down through generations? If we looked at your DNA, would we find the precise chromosome the gene is on?_

Of all the things to reawaken a long dormant, left for dead, interest in science, it had to be Max’s rewind powers and time traveling. 

_Damn, Max, your powers alone are worth about ten different PhD research papers._

_Can you get stuck in a time loop? What happens to people who get stuck in one?_

_If you create multiple bubble universes with each rewind, shouldn’t we see more ‘bruises’ on the Cosmic Microwave Background, where they touched our universe?_

Max wasn’t the only one flinging herself into reams of research and wiki walks and going thirty tabs deep into the internet to find answers to her timey-wimey powers. Magazines were flung from the box rescued from the junkyard as Chloe scoured them for any articles about time travelling, and she managed to even find a book in the attic that seemed to at least vaguely talk about the subject. 

_I…kinda missed learning about all this shit. Damn, I should never have thrown away all my textbooks._

Oddly, it didn’t feel weird–not _very_ much, anyway–that she was suddenly elbows deep again finding out everything science had to say on time travel and multiple universe theories. It kind of made Chloe feel like a total kid again, giddy with the pursuit of new knowledge, driven by a hungry curiosity about everything. She needed to get to the bottom of this, she had to help Max, find a way to explain why she suddenly had her powers. 

But it wasn’t all without forays into tabs completely unrelated to anything time-travel. She’d find a link to some new discoveries about volcanoes or octopuses or isotopes or even the science of why puppies are cute, and she’d open a new tab each time. 

_Man, if only_ I _had rewind powers, I’d read this stuff all night!_

_Damn, if only I knew about Scishow way earlier!  
_

_Whoa, an astronomy podcast? Gonna listen to that bad boy sometime.  
_

_Okay, let’s find out why explosions are so awesome.  
_

Rachel may have saved Chloe from her loneliness and confusion about her identity, but Max saved her passion for science. 

Maybe she _did_ have a destiny after all. 

Maybe she _could_ try again, go somewhere, discover who she wanted to be, and deliver something back to the world. 

_For the sheer love of science and knowledge._

Would she have rediscovered her love for science if Max never returned? Well, no way she was going to rewind and find out–she had her best friend _and_ her old love for scientific knowledge back. And no _way_ was she letting go of either ever, _ever_ again, for as long as she would live. She, Chloe Price, was going to learn as much as she could about everything. She wasn’t going to back down from that challenge. Science, like Max, was back in her world, two old friends once estranged from her, now at her side once more.

 _Thanks Max._ _You saved me again._

**Author's Note:**

> All photography in this story are mine. :)


End file.
